27th Street 5/15/17

went on an exchange in Rio Grande City this last week, it is about an hour from out area and it was a great experience we were able to find long lost members, we contact a referral and found out that its actually a member that hasnt been to church in a while and hasnt had any contact so it was awesome to finally make the connection again. those are some of my favorite moments when youre just following the spirit and you come across someone who hasnt seen missionaries in a long time. we had another experience kinda like that where it truly testified that we were instruments in the lords hands. we had just got done visiting a member and contact a few referrals and then we decided to say prayer because all of our plans fell. so we prayed and then started driving and we turned a few blocks and then we parked in front of an apartment building and then shortly after that this white truck pulled up in front of us. as we were sitting there this woman walked up to the white truck in front of us and she was in tears holding her little baby boy. we immediately got out and started talking to her she was just in tears and we said a prayer with her and she calmed down and said there were some crazy things going on in her family. her son was 4 months old and we just testified of what we know is true and she totally changed her mood and said we could come back again later. after that we were like woah..the gospel is so true. we've been going hard with family history and we came across this member who has done nothing and she's the only member in her family also her and her husband want to be sealed! how sick! we are super pumped to help them get prepared. also we are working in helping this member come back to church, he has 3 purple hearts from the army. things are poppin here mostly in genealogy also Pedro is super pumped to be baptized this saturday, he even brought his father in law to church and he loved it. mothers day was dope, the primary in one of the wards sang a sweet song, i cant remember what its called but i remember how i felt when they sang it and to be honest i almost wanted to cry cause it really helped me remember how much my mom means to me and just all of the things ive learned from her. one thing in particular is prayer. as a child she would kneel down with me and help me learn to pray when i was a lil dude, she also used to always wear this mickey mouse watch that would play music and i loved hearing it. my mom is the best and im so thankful for all the things she has sacrificed for my siblings and i. she's the best and i miss her a ton:) gracias mami, te amo!!

You already know its goin down when missionaries go to a buffet with a member. (4 plates or nah)

Elder Newns and I ( he's from Orem)

Pretty intimidating

Gringo

Post visit

Rio Dog

Feliz Dia De Las Madres

part of the squad

also something super cool, i live literally a minute from the border and the entry into Reynosa Mexico.

Situations 5/1/17

quote of the week, "you can draw a horse to the water but you cant force it to drink" also another one, "always pray before you knock a Trap Hou$e"

after 6 wonderful weeks here in San Benito it is coming to an end. we are being white washed. Elder Frandsen is going to Robstown in Sinton zone and i am going to Hidalgo as a zone leader there where my new companion will be Elder Piñeres and we will be white washing that area. but great news i found out my old companion elder Messinger is coming from beeville to San benito, how rad right? the mission is so wonderful you know. the other day we were walking down the street and just enjoying the mission talking to people and this soccer mom in her van drove by and we happily waved and she just flipped the bird, how lovely. lol i went on an exchange with Elder Puga. this whole week was actually a blur one scripture that really helped us and i enjoy reading in my mind is jacob 6:12 "O be wise; what can i say more?" just serve the lord. just do it!! we've been doing lots of service lately which has been great. we had some extra time before a cita and we decided to knock a few house in the area and so we said a prayer and went straight to it. we knocked a few houses y nada and then we heard some kids yelling in a house and we went and knocked the door of the house and a women opened up and within seconds invited us in and gave us water and asked how long we've been on our mission. we were in shock like woah, who are you? come to find out she's the daughter of a LA member we are working with and she used to go to church. they invited us to visit them again. i did a couple interviews for the sisters in my district and while i was interviewing the father of this family i had deja vu and it was just a really cool experience hearing their testimonies and just seeing how the gospel can change peoples lives. we also had the privilege of having lunch at The Gold Palms (a retirement center) there is a sister that lives there and she invited us over for lunch, it was dope. its honeslty the best retirement center ever! we were out contacting later in the week and we knocked a door and this guy just gave me a dallas cowboys thermos. its starting to hit 100's que bendicion right? haha its great. another cool experience we were also walking down another street and this little boy saw us from down the street and waved at us to come over. as we walked over his mother bolted inside and he stayed outside even though his mother was yelling at him. he must have been around 3 or 4 yrs old and he stayed outside, he couldnt speak a whole lot, well he was speaking so fast cause he was so happy we were there. he ran in to get his mom and she wouldnt come, we gave him a card with our info then left inside. and so we left and we were just 3 feet outside their gate and we hear the door bust open and there he was trying to show his older brother us.. he tried to avoid us be realized that we saw him so he came out. we talked to him just a kid in highschool and yeah later came to find out that they are members that havnt gone in a long time..I truly believe that, that little boy truly knows who we are. if it wasnt for him we wouldnt have found them. children are so awesome. i am so thankful for this opportunity.. i wouldnt trade it for anything. many times have we showed up at the right place at the right time when someone needed a prayer or just spiritual strength and just anything.

The Fam: Elder Flannery, Pollito (Barnett), Me y Elder Scott

Arroyo City

Mr. G's Pickadily

The Golden Palms with sister Flannery

The Golden Palms

The dopest family in San Benito: Mario, Patty y Blanca

best dog in the world, he just chills on this corner allll year. 

left a message for someone who wouldnt open the door, just wanted to make sure they got the message. 

resaca sun set:/ 

Mission humor 

made me think of my dad

very true 

K onda?

Are you Happy Now? 5/8/17

so we cover a 3rd of an english ward and then we are over a whole spanish ward, the area is big but its pretty fun so far. wow theres so many thing i want to write about but really i just want to talk about this man named Pedro.

so we are doing this retention plan for all recent converts and just helping the build a firm foundation on the gospel well my compa and i also presented a plan to the lord of houses that we will contact and we were out and about doing that while trying to pass by the recent converts. well one of the thing is knocking houses with christmas lights. youd be surprised that we've actually been coming across a lot of houses like that and we knocked this one and this woman answered the door and she was pretty sick and not really interested..but she said her husband has been looking for a church and we were like dope!! we got their info to come by later when her husband was home. well we tried by later y nada. sunday came and we tried by and nada again. well we called and nothing, so we texted her saying hey dont forget to remind your husband about church and what time it starts. as we are sitting in church this guy walks in, kinda not sure where to sit but he sits down and then just then we got a text from her saying hey i told my husband, he should be there, we are like no way!! so i go sit next to him and its her husband, how awesome!! he loved it and we set a baptismal date with him later. he's awesome!!

another cool thing that happened. on our way to coordination this guy had a truck filled with mangos and fruit and all his mangos spilled all over the street there were people getting out of their cars to help him and so we get out as well and then he let us take a box of mangos home. this place is awesome! and all the sisters and elders in the zone are great!! its been quite the transition but its been good. they are all going crazy on family history here!! the mission is awesome.

San Benito District

a Fidget or whatever you call them, they are the thing to have now i guess.

Bro Vela, I miss that guy:/

The Cuevas and Ericka

Elder Gunderson and I (the appendix guy)

we feel super chiflado..

Anthrax 4/17/19

irst things first, Shontell the mother of The Squad in Beeville, was baptized yesterday!! AH
earlier this week elder frandsen and i were eating with a couple members and we got a phone call from a random number and it was The squad.. ah i wanted to cry they just called to see how i was doing. Shontell was the final member in their family to be baptized.
so diabetes is a very common down here. like very common and we were talking with this guy and he was explaning to us how he had a high blood sugar earlier in the day and he was waiting for it to go down. i just felt that i should ask him how high it was.. and he said. "oh it was 500" my compa and i were blown away! woah!! errrrr hold up what!!
3nephi5:13 we have been call to serve!! go get em!! we've been running around everywhere. we were talking to this women an daughter at the resaca and this random guy with sun glasses and a beard walks up and gave us 2 gatorades adn walked away. we tried to talk to him but he just left in his car. we blessed this mans haunted house and were antied pretty hard, something i learned a lot this week was the power of the spirit when its telling you to get the heck out of there. this man"healed" our investigator and was just going crazy on us it was nuts. another day we were driving to a bunch of citas and as we were driving passed the resaca i saw this woman sitting at the park alone with 2 kids, something just told me to hurry and stop the car and go talk to her and thats what we did, eeerrrr! stopped, walked casually to the park and as soon as we walked up she told us to go away, but we insisted that she take a card. she did and then she just burst into tears, we then talked about the importance of woman and mothers, and just our purpose in life. she cried and wants to come to church! what a blessing to be a part of that. we are really trying to help this branch turn into a ward and theres about a handful of priesthood holders we are working with that through some miracles in their lives have started to come back and even feel desires to come. its pretty interesting this reactivation work and just watching it happen. seeing someone that hasnt gone to church in a long time, finally come back. i jump for joy as if it were an investigator!! and thats exactly what happen on sunday!! please go to church. im grateful for my mom coming over my hair when i was a kid before i went to church.

a story just came to mind that i want to share of an experience i had when i was 16 or 17. i woke up from a nap one day and got a message on my phone that one of my favorite bands (Anti-Flag) would be coming to utah and that it was going to be Free, you can imagine how awesome that was. well the day came for the concert and of course being the only punk out of my friends i went alone, took the train and was just super pumped for the concert. i finally get there and the opening bands are pretty alright, they were utah local bands but then finally the time came and Anti-Flag was going to come on stage ahhhh i was so pumped so hyped!! immediately a circle pit opened up and there was just people going everywhere.. wells something about me is i LOVE circle pits. Anti-Flag was playing and i just jumped right in, and just having the time of my life, im jumping on peoples shoulders and everything is just going great!! well as im jumping this guy decided to go the opposite way and hit people with his shoulder... and while i was in the air, he totally got me in the gut. i lost my breath and fell to the ground, i got up to try and get out of the pit but i couldnt, people kept pushing me back in. i tried and tried and i for reals i thought i was going to pass out cause i couldnt get any air. i tried again and denied again people just pushed me back in.. and then finally i did all i could to get out, yes i had to throw someone out of the way to let me through but i made it outside finally and was able to breath... at times in our life some times we get caught in a mosh, or circle pit. we try and try to get out but nada. we are gasping for air and then you remember that you came alone.. i just want to let everyone know that there is a way out of the mosh, you have to work for it and really lean on the lord for help. but dont be the guy that just flops on the ground and gives up.., Dale Gas, you got it:) have a great week!!

Sanny B Dream

I thought it was a squashed shoe.. ended up being a squashed turtle.

Groovy, baby

golden texts

Your Problem, My Emergency 4/24/17

Amelia stepped into the waters of baptism on saturday!! it was dope and then friday night we found out that another investigator from some elders in the zone was going to be baptized on saturday so there was a bunch of people there and even quite a few investigator families.

so when i first got here i was looking over the registro at the names of the people and decided to call this brother Phipps who my compa had never met but there was a number so i thought id try it out.. well he picked up. he lives out in the middle of nowhere and we've been trying to get in contact with him so we could go over. well finally we were able to meet him in his home the first thing he said was " how did you guys find me? Ive lived here 20 yrs and you guys are the first people from the church to visit me" my heart sank and we ended up having the best time with him. found out he was baptized cause he got drafted to go to vietnam and his mother was worried for him cause he had never been baptized and so he went around trying to find a church that would let him be baptized and the lds church was the one, he's been inactive for over 40 yrs but said that we will be seeing him soon in church.

theres also this other brother, brother V who is struggling with money and we thought hey we have a bunch of canned food at our apartment we could bring it to him so he can have something to eat so we did that. the next morning we just banged on his door and ran. ahh we felt great about what we did. we visited him later in the week and he said hey do you have anything to do with some food that was dropped off at my house the other day, we didnt say anything. he said well i wanted to thank whoever it was but i cant really eat most of it.. '-' dangit haha

so we've been meeting lots of people from this street wild olive and when we go to meet them they arent at home well we stopped to go visit someone and as we were at the door we saw 4 cops come screeching around the corner and go to this complex across the street and start banging on the door of this apartment and then finally they just kicked the door down and went into the house guns blazing that was all going on while we were trying to have a lesson lol. the person in that apartment ended up not being home.

saturday was a day of miracles so it was a sisters birthday in our district and she said that she has always wanted to catch a frog.. well later that day we were out contacting and we were walking across this field and this man was walking towards us with a gas can and we start talking to him and he immediately tells us that he's been dying to get baptized, he's read the bible but he cant find anyone that will baptized him and his family.. elder frandsen and i look at him like woah.. where did you come from. he said i live on WILD OLIVE...(orale, we believe that, that is why we have been finding people that live there is so we could find him) well we taught him the first vision and church and the next day he brought his kids and wife. alright back to saturday it was like 8:40 at night we were swinging by a LA real quick and set up a time to go later and on the way to our car we found one.. a Toad.. we we grabbed it raced over to the san benito chapel cause thats where the sisters were and as we were walking up there was a woman looking into the window and we say hi and then she asked us, when are your services? i want to go. this woman is named joanna and is living with a LA and has kids yeah the next day they all came to church!! oh my goodness.. i really cant explain all of this.."eye single to the glory of god" our attendance has gone up almost 30 people this transfer and we are on the verge of becoming a ward. the work moves on with or without some people. I truly know god lives and that he is still a god of miracles through the things that ive seen and experienced here. D&C136:29
If thou art sorrowful, call on the Lord thy God with supplication, that your souls may be joyful.
its not just something for missionaries though, anyone can see miracles. have joy and just be good and feel good. I truly know that joseph smith saw god the father and jesus christ and because i know that he was called as a prophet, i then believe that the prophets and apostles are called of God and the things that they say are to help guide us. word of wisdom, the gospel of jesus christ and the plan of salvation. Disfruta la vida.

Pan Dulce for breakfast

weakness, Golden Corral

#spotted

dinner in the sun

Amelia!!

Sanny B

You're so Vain

had some crazy pday activity last week on a ranch. but all the elders mainly played horse shoes, which is actually a really fun game. we were really trying to focus this week on finding people so we fasted and yes through the help of the lord we were able to find quite a few people but one of the most memorable ones was last night, we were still going through the registro to get in contact with people and we came across this guy named Serafin who we have never met. well he came outside to the gate where we were and he was like (in spanish) i havent gone to church in like 30 years, where is it around here, and we told him where it was and he said perfect well idk if my catholic wife will go but i'll try and go then i asked him for a tortilla and he asked, are you guys hungry, of course hermano so then he let us in and we ended up talking to his 15 yr old son named Antonio, and he was open eyed the whole time and just continued to say"this is nothing like the catholic church, this is so interesting" and so we went over the restoration and plan of salvation and he was just mind blown and just so pumped. it honestly was a miracle and we felt so blessed to be a part of that, immediatly after we said a prayer of gratitude. earlier in the week, Frandse, Luque, and Del Angel burned a tie cause they all hit their 6 month mark, how exciting!. ive been getting lots of nightmares lately and wake up in tears cause all of my dreams are me being home. its awful. so i asked my mission president if i could never go home and he said no.. ah que triste.. well we've been working a lot in Rio Hondo which is a city 15 minutes away from San Benito. we came across someone on the registro again we wanted to try, knocked the door and this older women opened and explained that her son and daughter in law used to live with her and her daughter in law and grandaughter were baptized but they had moved to san benito. she then gave us the address and started to have a lesson with her and just then, guess who rolled up, her son. ahhh it was a miracle, he gets out all pumped his name is Kenny and invited us over the next day. we go over the next day and have a bomb lesson with the family, they are the Prather family. super loving and awesome!! another miracle this week, frandsen and i went to visit a former and as we were pulling onto the street of the former i saw a lady walking her dog in her front yard and something told me to talk to her, so we pulled up and started talking and within 3 minutes she invited us over to dinner and brought out her husband to meet us! ahhh woahhhhh!!. we also got antied pretty good, it was a great week. its warming up but its still good.

Horse Shoes.

missionaries love donuts

some cup thing

we were playing prophet says (simon says) 

and of course there was candy lol

Sanny B Dream

lol ties

my hair in the morning..

6 de Septiembre

the mission is like a good book, the more and more you read it just gets more interesting and intense and crazy closer to the end. so the elders here got a bale of ties before i got here and so we had to dispose of all the ties. the back seat and truck were full it was bad. we had a bomb district meeting and i shared a story of when chris and i went to rose wood one morning to skate board, we wanted to drop into the 7 foot quarter pipe.. and we were all pumped and amped to drop in and i went first and just went right onto my stomach, it was awful and i look up and chris is just laughing his head off and crying cause it was so funny and i got up and went for it again and got it. and chris laughed the whole time and never wanted to try after seeing me fail. lol we went to los fresnos cause the sisters were having a baptism and i saw elder barnett and my grandson elder flanary. i feel like when i got here i jumped onto a bucking bronco. we are slowly taming the best. real quick. Sequoia from Beeville was baptized!! and sad news.. our bishop passed away i just found out:/ we've been seeing a lot of opposition which is good, lots of negative people and rejection. idk why but it just lights me up even more like i feel like im on fire, elder frandsen and i are having a blast!! Ive really been coming to learn how important it is to do something when youre told. the lord is so merciful. we are so blessed in so many ways. it was about 8:40pm and we were waiting for an investigator to show up for a cita and we decided to knock a few doors. we knock this door and this woman opens and right off the bat says that the missionaries visited her in the past once but never came back and invited us back over! andale!! we also had an all of a sudden mlc which was good where we talked about gratitude, patience, dont compare and amor. saturday morning we went to golden corral with the 2nd counselor bro ford and stuffed our faces before conference, oh it was wonderful. this weekend was crazy!! ahh conference was so good. being on a mission is the best! i wouldnt trade this for anything. i honestly wouldnt mind serving for another 2 years. knowing that this is the only time i can serve the lord like this makes it so much more precious each day. san benito is dope!! I know God lives and that he knows my heart, with faith you can see miracles.

lleno

mijo, y nieto

Rio Hondo museum.. lol

Resaca City

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